


Toss a Coin to Your Witcher

by fortunehasgivenup



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: AU, Affection, Angst, Bathtubs, Bondage, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Feelings, Infertility, Magic, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Teasing, The Witcher AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:41:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22620418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunehasgivenup/pseuds/fortunehasgivenup
Summary: Rio is beginning to accept the fact that Elizabeth is likely a permanent fixture in his life, even if he has no idea where she is or what she’s doing most of the time.(Rio's a Witcher, Beth is a sorceress.)
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Comments: 22
Kudos: 94





	Toss a Coin to Your Witcher

**Author's Note:**

> Like in the show, there is some discussion of infertility and how Beth is upset by the fact that she can't have biological children.

“What are you doing?”

Rio straightens up, turning his head to see Elizabeth standing on the riverbank, looking around them in distaste. He didn’t hear her arrive.

“Fishing,” he snaps, tossing the net back in.

He hears her make a noise of disgust, but ignores it.

“I don’t know why you do these things,” she says. “You could live anywhere you wanted - in a court, a city, citadel. Somewhere with servants.”

“Not all of us want that, Elizabeth,” he tells her, drawing the net out.

Elizabeth adores luxury. Normally, the only times that he encounters her is in towns, the homes of rich men. For her to be here, there must be a good reason, but Rio isn’t about ask her what that reason is.

“Do you do this often?” Her voice is closer now. “Live off the land.”

Rio grunts.

Her hand comes to rest on his lower back. “Come, let’s go somewhere. I’ll pay for your dinner and everything.”

Rio turns his head to glare at her, but he softens the moment that he sees her expression. Her eyes are sad, jaw tight.

“What is it?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”

She lifts her chin. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Rio knows she’s lying, but he gathers the net and turns away from the river. “Fine. Give me time to pack my things.”

“Why do you insist on living like this?” she asks. “It’s horrible.”

He ignores her as he gathers his things, packing them up and putting his jacket back on. “Ready.”

She raises a hand to open a portal, but Rio reaches out and grabs her hand to stop her.

“I’m not traveling that way,” he growls. “You know that.”

Elizabeth purses her lips. “How do you suggest we travel then?”

Rio looks to his horse. “You can either get on the horse or meet me there.”

“In that case,” Elizabeth steps away from him, “I’ll see you in town.”

Elizabeth has been driving him half mad ever since he stumbled across her in that mayor’s mansion years ago. She’d stolen most of the town’s gold - earned it, she kept insisting. He’d walked in to find her at the centre of an orgy, watching it all with disinterest. 

When he hadn’t immediately prostrated himself at her feet or tried to join the naked bodies dancing around her, he had become the single object of her fascination.

And Rio couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t mutual.

She was a hellion and a half, constantly showing up at the worst times to drag him to bed or make a mess of his plans. 

But she had stopped hiding so much of herself from him as time wore on.

He’d seen the scars on her body and the more serious ones that had been left on her soul. 

He had let her see his own in return. He had been half sure she would mock him, push him away. But she had kissed every single one of them before falling asleep and the next time that they’d met, she had put herself between him and another sorceress.

Rio is beginning to accept the fact that Elizabeth is likely a permanent fixture in his life, even if he has no idea where she is or what she’s doing most of the time.

It doesn’t take long to ride into town and find the most expensive inn. He asks for the sorceress and the young maid, blushing, tells him that the red-haired woman had said to send him up to her room when he arrived.

Of course she had.

When he joins Elizabeth, she’s already in the bath. She’s leaning against the side, breasts rising up out of the water, nipples peaked. He snorts softly.

Rio shuts the door behind him. Setting aside his sword, he begins to undo his jacket and shirt.

“That’s new,” she says without opening her eyes. He knows that she’s talking about the scar on his chest, the result of an encounter with a striga. “Who took care of it? It’s barely healed.”

“I did,” Rio says, moving to take a seat while he undoes his boots.

She hums, shifting a little. “You’re a terrible healer.”

“Never said I wasn’t.” Rio gets his feet free and wiggles his toes.

“You should have come to me.” Her eyes open, slits of bright blue in the candle light. “I would have taken care of you.”

Rio laughs. “And you only would have charged me an arm for it, I suppose, rather than an arm and a leg.”

“I think I would have merely demanded a few fingers,” she tells him. Rio unbuttons his trousers, then leans back in the chair to watch her.

“Oh?”

Her lips curl.

“Which ones?” Rio asks.

“I think you know,” she nearly purrs it, her eyes opening a little wider.

Rio doesn’t rise to the taunt. “What would you do with them?”

She bites her lip, curling her fingers around the rim of the tub to pull herself upright. Rio watches water droplets make their way down her fingers and drop to the floor, then snaps his eyes back to her face.

“I’d want you to touch me,” Elizabeth says.

“Only my fingers?” Rio drawls. “The last time we were together, you screamed for my tongue.”

She leans against the edge of the tub towards him. “I remember,” she replies, then her face darkens. “You were gone when I woke.”

Rio stands and walks to the edge of the tub. He pushes down his trousers and once he’s nude, lifts his foot to join her in the bath. The water is hot enough to make him wince, but he quickly adjusts.

Settling against the opposite end of the small tub, Rio studies her.

Elizabeth is tired, an undercurrent of anger simmering beneath the skin.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” Rio says. She stiffens. “But a boy came from a nearby village, covered in blood. He was the only survivor. I needed to deal with it.”

“You could have woken me.”

“Perhaps.” Rio shrugs. “You looked so peaceful.”

That seems to surprise her and she relaxes again.

“Come here,” Rio says.

Elizabeth narrows her eyes, but rises up on her knees to move closer. Rio takes her by the hips to guide her on top of him.

He brushes his now wet hand over her cheek. “You wanted me to stay.”

She glances away, chin jutting upwards just a fraction more. It bares more of her throat to him, so he takes advantage of it. From her cheek, his fingers caress the hinge of her jaw before he fans out his thumb so that his palm is resting against the column of her throat. He can feel her swallow.

“Look at me,” he demands.

Elizabeth does.

“Just because I leave,” Rio tells her, “doesn’t mean that I’m not coming back.” She flushes. “I’ll always come back to you.”

“Like a bad penny,” she says, but she’s smiling softly at him as she says it, so Rio nods. “My bad penny.”

Rio chuckles, setting his other hand on her waist. “I think you might be my bad penny actually.”

She lifts a brow in question.

“I found you first,” he says.

“No, you did not, you -“ Rio cuts off whatever insult she was about to throw at him by ducking his head and biting her nipple. 

“Oh,” Elizabeth sighs.

“Do you remember when we met?” she asks.

Rio stops mouthing at her breast. “Like I could forget. I’ve still got a scar where I knocked my head against your dinner table.”

“Not that part,” she huffs.

“Which one?” he asks.

“When,” she gasps when Rio’s hand slips down to play between her legs, “when we bathed together.”

Rio hums, turning his attention to the other breast. “It was a much bigger tub,” he drawls, making Elizabeth giggle.

“I asked you not to look,” she says, stroking the back of his head, “and you didn’t. Not until the end.”

“You let me,” he reminds her. “You wanted me to look or else you would have made sure that I didn’t see you.”

“It had been a long time since I’d been around someone that I couldn’t enchant,” Elizabeth’s voice quiets. “It doesn’t happen often.”

“I know.” Rio kisses the peak of her breast.

“Did you -“ she trails off.

“Did I what?” Rio asks.

It takes her a moment to ask her question. “Did you want me then?”

Rio stops rubbing his fingers against her entrance and moves both of his hands to Elizabeth’s hips. Looking at her and hearing the uncertainty in her voice, it would be easy to mistake her for a young woman. She’s not as old as he is, not even by half, but she’s already lived a lifetime.

“I was afraid to,” he admits to her. “I thought you might turn me into a newt, like you had the mayor.” She blushes. “But I knew that you were the cleverest person that I’d ever met even before I stepped foot in that house. I knew you were the most beautiful woman in the world before you took off your mask, your dress.”

He had faced away from her that night, listening as her layers fell to the ground, then the slightest sound of her feet on stone, then she’d been climbing in behind him. When Rio had chanced a glance over his shoulder, her back had been to him, though she’d still caught him trying to peek.

He hadn’t laid a finger on her that night and when he woke in the morning, it was to discover that she was attempting a particularly foolish spell using a few drops of his blood. Rio had nearly torn the house in half stopping Elizabeth from being consumed by the spell and then she’d had the audacity to be angry at him. She had only stopped yelling when he kissed her, but before long, she was letting out a different kind of shout as she’d ridden him until they both peaked.

“What’s wrong, Elizabeth?”

“You’re the only one that calls me that, you know,” she says.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Rio chastises her attempt at evasion. “What is it?”

“What’s it matter?” Her voice has a touch of bitterness now, the kind he doesn’t hear from her often.

Rio grabs her face and holds it in place. She can still move her eyes, but she’s stubborn, so she meets his stare.

“If you don’t tell me what’s wrong, I can’t help you fix it,” he says.

“It’s nothing,” she tries.

Rio shakes his head.

“It was this day, years and years ago, that I was transformed.” She lets her eyes fall shut. “When I traded -“ her mouth screws up tight and Rio wishes that he could smooth away the wrinkle in her brow. “You know what I traded,” she finishes, setting her jaw. She won’t say anything else.

Rio does know. He lets go of her face and lowers one hand to settle on her belly. He knows what she wants, is intimately familiar with the lengths that she’s willing to go in order to get it. But there’s no hope for her there. They both know it and yet still she tries.

“Elizabeth,” he sighs, letting his head fall against her chest. “You need to let go.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snaps at him. “You aren’t my keeper.”

Rio smiles into her skin. “Sometimes I feel like I am.”

She jabs him in the bicep. He grabs her wrists in his and lifts his head. She could break his hold easily, but she only gives the barest facade of a struggle before settling.

“You’re important to me as you are,” he tells her. “As Elizabeth.”

Her eyes lower to her hands.

“I hate watching you struggle, hunting for something that you aren’t going to find.” He strokes the back of her hand with his thumb. “Why can’t you be enough?”

She sighs and this time it’s her who presses against him.

“Take me to bed,” she says.

Rio doesn’t respond right away and when he does, it’s awkward to manoeuvre in the tub. It startles a giggle out of Elizabeth when he stands and carries her to the bed, which he’s almost certain didn’t have so fine a mattress before she arrived. He kisses her and she returns the gesture of affection, wrapping her legs around his hips and bringing him in contact with her cunt.

“Fuck me,” she demands.

Rio’s face smooths over as he replies, “No.”

She’s startled, then angry. “What do you mean, no?”

“I’m not your plaything, Elizabeth,” he tells her, grabbing her hip to stop her from rubbing herself against him. “I do not exist to make you feel better about yourself.”

“Then get out,” she snaps, “and I’ll find someone else.”

“No, you will not.”

Her eyes start to change as her anger builds.

“You think that you’re the only one in the world with troubles,” he says. “Need I remind you of what my training involved?” He lowers his face so that it’s hovering over hers. “I haven’t seen you in months. Do you know what I’ve done in that time?”

Her jaw tightens.

“Do you know how many beasts I’ve had to fight? How many villages I’ve had to leave because they think I’m a monster? Do you know how often I wake up, thinking that I have blood on my hands?” Rio hisses his questions. Elizabeth looks away. “You don’t. You are not the only one who suffers in life.”

There are tears building up in the corner of her eyes. “They died.”

Rio blinks. “Who died?”

“The people that I was supposed to be protecting,” she says. “They died and it hurt.”

Rio sighs and slumps into her. “Elizabeth,” he strokes her cheek, “you did everything that you could.”

She shakes her head. “I could have done more. My mind wasn’t where it should have been. I - I thought of calling you, asking you to come, help fight the thing in the woods that was killing the villagers. But I was convinced that I didn’t need any help. Five others died before I killed it.”

“You can’t save everyone.”

“I barely saved anyone,” she says bitterly.

“When was this?” Rio asks, gentling his tone.

“I delivered the survivors to the nearest town two days ago.”

Rio bends his head to kiss away the tears that are slipping out of her eyes now. She turns her face towards him, brushing their lips together. “I need to feel alive,” she murmurs. “Like I’m real.”

He can understand that. He’s lost himself in plenty of warm bodies over the years - in triumph and failure. Regret was always the hardest to shake and Rio still clung to a great deal of it.

“You’re alright,” he tells her, kissing her softly, “you’re alive, you’re here.”

She’s tentative as she deepens the kiss. Rio normally wants to tease her, work her open with his fingers and drag it out. But Elizabeth wants a touch of pain, wants soreness to linger after he’s gone, reminding her that she’s alive. Part punishment, part assurance.

Knowing that, he puts one hand between them to guide his cock into her, hissing at the tightness. She groans.

Rio takes what he wants from Elizabeth, giving her what she needs in return. He bites her chest, her neck, shoulders, as he fucks her. When he pushes himself up so that he’s looking down at her, he watches as her breasts bounce with his thrusts.

She cries out when he pulls away, ready to shout at him, but Rio just flips her onto her belly before sliding back in. Hands on her hips, he pulls her up and holds her in place. She starts to push her chest up as well, but that’s not what Rio wants, so he growls and reaches forward to plant a hand between her shoulder blades and pushes her down.

She tightens around him at that, she’s getting close. She’s right on the edge, a few more touches will give her extraordinary pleasure.

Rio pulls out, letting her legs drop. She shrieks, trying to turn around to glare at him, but he’s still pressing her down, so all she can do is turn her cheek onto the pillow.

“What are you doing?” she hisses.

“I’m not sure that you deserve pleasure tonight,” he drawls, aware that he’s going to give her exactly that. Eventually.

“And what would you suggest, witcher,” she pants, “pain?”

“Oh no,” Rio replies, “I think you’d like that far too much.”

Huffing, she moves one of her hands towards her cunt. Rio just laughs.

“Do you think you can really give yourself what you need, Elizabeth?” He grabs hold of her hand, but rather than dragging it away, he pushes it against her. “You think after what I’ve been giving you, your fingers will do the trick?”

“You’re a bastard,” Elizabeth tells him, slipping three fingers inside of herself. He knows it’s not satisfying and he grins as he strokes the back of her hand, feeling the movements of her fingers in the shift of tendons beneath her skin

“Might be,” Rio says.

She’s squirming on her fingers, but after a moment, she groans and pulls them out.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, stroking her hip.

“I don’t know,” Beth snaps, “why won’t you tell me and then go back to fucking me.”

“I think that you need to figure it out yourself,” Rio teases. He lifts his hand from her back and lets her turn onto her back, glaring up at him. She sits up and takes him in her hand, starts to pleasure him exactly the way she knows he likes. Rio’s head falls back and he moans.

Then her mouth is sucking on the head of his cock and Rio has to fist her hair. She bobs her head a few times, then pulls away. “Two can play that game,” she tells him, tugging on his balls. It’s a gesture just this side of painful that morphs into pleasure when she lets go.

Before Elizabeth has a chance to stop him, he takes himself in hand and gives his cock the last few strokes that it needs and then he’s spilling onto her chest as she lets out a noise of disgust.

“Really?” she snarls.

Rio tightens the hand that he still has twined in her hair and pulls her head up as he lowers his. “Be glad it wasn’t in your mouth,” he tells her before kissing her.

“Why is it that you get to finish and I don’t?” she pulls back to ask.

“Because, Elizabeth,” he tells her firmly, “sometimes what you want isn’t what you need.”

He sees her shiver and knows that he’s got her. Everyone always bows to Elizabeth. She’d ensured that she got the political assignment that she wanted, made the sorcerers give her everything that she desired. He wonders what she would have been like if her teachers had been more firm, if they had denied her those desires in order to fulfill her needs. It’s too late now for what ifs.

She reaches out for his cock, barely brushing it before he pushes her hand away. She pouts.

“What did I just say?” he asks.

She’s defiant as she glares up at him. “That what I want isn’t what I need,” she says, faux-sweetness dripping from her mouth. “What is it that I need, Rio?”

He smiles down at her. “Lose the tone, first of all.”

Elizabeth’s lips part in shock.

Rio lets go of her hair and moves to recline on the bed, making the pillows into a pile at his back. She hasn’t moved and is still staring at him in disbelief.

“Do you know who I am?” Her tone is angry.

Rio nods. “You like to remind me of it. Often. Do you know what I think you are?”

She turns to face him. His seed is drying on her skin, but she’s forgotten about it. “No,” she admits.

“I think you’re spoiled,” he replies. He doesn’t let her protest, just goes on. “I think that you’re a spoiled little sorceress, one who has been allowed to do as she pleases for far too long. I won’t let you though. And you’re clever enough to know that I’m one of the few people in this world capable of withstanding your particular charms.” She bristles. “Just as I know that you’re one of the few strong enough to deal with me.”

That makes her soften slightly.

“What are you saying?” Elizabeth asks.

“Do what I tell you for the next -“ Rio looks at the cuckoo clock, “hour, and I’ll make you come so hard that you’ll be feeling me in between those beautiful thighs of yours for a week.”

Her eyes widen. “Fine,” she breathes.

He rolls off the bed and starts to remove the pillows. “Lie back,” he tells her. She doesn’t do it right away, but eventually, she reclines on the bed and stays there as Rio walks around the room. He picks up her dress and rips it. He hears Elizabeth gasp quietly, but ignores her.

After he has enough fabric, he returns to the bed and gets to work.

With her arms tied in place with the strips of her dress, Rio studies Elizabeth. She’s pouting at him, no doubt trying to tempt him into breaking.

“Hungry?” Rio asks, taking a grape from the bowl of fruit that she’s no doubt magicked from somewhere.

She purses her lips, shakes her head.

“No?” Rio picks up the bowl and carries it over to the bed. “You don’t take care of yourself.”

She bristles at that. “Need I remind you that I’m a woman fully grown,” she snaps, “and what’s more, I’m a sorceress?”

He snorts. “No, that’s plenty clear, sweetheart.” He eats another grape as he leers at her breasts, but holds the next up to Elizabeth’s mouth. Glaring at him, she accepts the fruit.

“Don’t frown or your face will get stuck like that,” he tells her, moving to an orange. The juice bursts as soon as he starts to peel it.

“My arms are tired,” Elizabeth says.

“How sad,” Rio drawls, taking the first segment of orange and tossing it in his mouth.

She lets out a little growl, but when he presses the next piece to her lips, she eats it.

They go on like that for a few more slices. Then Elizabeth changes the game by moving her head forwards and biting his fingers.

Laughing, he grips her jaw and pushes her head down against the bed. “Feel better?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says, ever the petulant child.

“Can’t have that now, can we?” He kisses her forehead and gets off the bed, taking the fruit with him.

“Rio!” she lifts her head to call out.

Rio just goes to sit in the overstuffed armchair by the fire. Bowl in his hands, he lifts his feet and props them on the little table, then finishes the orange very slowly as Elizabeth stares at him.

At any moment, she could be free. She could light those bindings on fire. Sever them. Kill him. But she doesn’t. She just glares at him.

“Were you still hungry?” Rio asks.

“No!” she snaps in response. “Get back here!”

“No.” Rio goes back to eating the grapes. They’re delicious. Out of season nearly everywhere this time of year. He wonders where she summoned them from.

“Where do you summon the food from?” Rio asks.

Elizabeth scoffs. “Like I’ll tell you a thing.”

“I’m curious,” Rio goes on like she didn’t say anything. “You never seem to travel with much, but you’re always well fed. Hell, I never eat better than when we’re together, even in the middle of the desert. So where do you summon it from?”

“From your ass!” she shouts.

Rio tosses the grape into his mouth and chews. “Is that so? How interesting.”

If glares could kill, Rio would be six feet under.

“How about this,” Rio proposes, “you tell me where you get the fruit from, and I’ll come back to the bed.”

He watches Elizabeth think it over. “Come back to the bed and do what? Because if you just come here and start eating fruit again, I will murder you.”

“I’ll come back to the bed and I’ll eat you,” Rio says. “Bury my tongue in that perfect little cunt.”

“I summon them from the sorcerer’s tower stores,” she says. “Their orchards and gardens have short, artificial winters. There are plant mages who ensure that there’s always plenty of food.”

“Do they know you do that?” Rio wonders.

Beth hesitates, so Rio stands and returns to the bed, this time settling on his belly in between her spread legs.

“Well, do they?” he asks, breathing against her.

She shakes her head.

Rio laughs. “No, I suppose you’re not one for obeying rules.” He pushes his head between her thighs and immediately starts to lick her centre, pushing his tongue inside of her, then retreating to latch onto her clit and suck twice. He pulls away.

“There,” he says.

Elizabeth is furious, her eyes starting to glow just a little.

“I did what I said I would,” Rio reminds her. She tries to knee him in the head, but Rio grabs her thighs and slams them back into the bed, far enough apart that it’s a stretch for her.

“No patience,” he sighs, tutting. “Has anyone ever told you that you are far too demanding?”

“Yes,” she bites out. He rewards her answer by sealing his mouth over her clit. She moans, though it turns frustrated when he pulls away again.

“They tell you that in your little tower?”

When he looks up at her, she’s got a strange look on her face. “I don’t want to talk about that,” she says stiffly.

Ah.

Letting go of her legs, Rio moves until he’s lying on his side next to her. “What did they tell you?”

“Nothing,” she says, not looking at him.

He sets his hand on her cheek, gentle as he can. “They told me I was a monster,” he says, “fit for nothing but killing and hurting and bloodshed until the day I can’t kill anymore.”

He doesn’t exert any pressure to turn her face towards him, so it’s her who shifts. “You aren’t,” she tells him.

“No?” Rio laughs. “Then why does everyone around me always wind up dead?”

“I haven’t.” Her mouth settles into a firm line. Good, now her focus is on him, not her thoughts.

“No, I suppose you haven’t. There’s still time though,” he half-jokes.

Elizabeth kicks him in the shin. “If you’re going to sit there and pity yourself, then untie me because I have no interest in participating.”

Rio catches her leg and pulls it until it’s hitched over his hip. It has the side effect of twisting her at the waist and she hisses at the stretch. But she doesn’t complain.

“Whenever I look at you,” he tells her, stroking her bare thigh, “it’s like looking at the sun after a long night. A relief, knowing that I’ve made it.”

She has nothing to say to that.

“You mean everything to me, Elizabeth.”

She swallows.

“Whatever they told you in that tower, whatever those stupid fucking kings you served told you, whatever else happens.” He leans over to kiss her, then pushes himself up and over her so that he’s hovering on his knees in between her legs. “Do you -“ he trails off. Feel the same. That’s what he wants to ask.

That infuriating pair of eyes roams over his face as that stubborn little mouth softens.

“It’s different,” she replies. “Like when the sun finally starts to fall and the stars come out. No one is looking at me any longer, waiting for me to have all of the answers. I can just be.”

He strokes her cheek and nods. “Do you want me?”

“Always,” she replies. She stares right into him, like she’s able to see his thoughts, she goes on, “No one else.”

Rio kisses her and sinks back inside. She gasps into his mouth.

He moves slowly, in and out, grinding a little deeper every time.

Elizabeth grips the ties and arches her back. “Oh!” she shrieks.

Rio pushes his cock a little deeper. She moans, trying to search for relief.

“Elizabeth.” It’s a demand and it brings her eyes back to him.

She nods. “Please.”

He’ll give her anything that she wants. Or try to, at least. There’s things that are beyond his power, something that they’re both acutely aware of.

He presses their mouths together, alternating between kissing and just breathing together in time with his thrusts. He’s not going to deprive her of her peak this time. He wants to feel her tightening around him, wants to hear the little sounds she makes in her pleasure.

“Rio,” she gasps. He nods, brushing his lips from her chin to her nose before settling on her mouth again.

He hears the bed posts creak as she pulls on her bonds. She mewls and Rio keeps going, drawing out her pleasure as he searches for his own. It’s almost an afterthought though, when he starts to come.

She whimpers as he fills her, then relaxes back into the bed, spent.

It takes Rio a moment to collect himself, to withdraw. He wants to collapse beside her, but he unbinds her first, just tearing the cloth again, then bringing her hands down to untie what’s left around her wrist, massaging her arms as he does.

She lifts her head and he kisses her without her needing to ask out loud. They settle, Rio curling around Elizabeth and wrapping her in his warmth. Once they’ve found a position that they’re both comfortable in, Rio kisses the side of her head.

She hums, content.

His eyes are drooping when she speaks again.

“You are to me, too, you know.” She pauses. “Important.”

Rio smiles into her hair.

He knows.

Still, it’s nice to hear it.

———————————————————

Beth wakes up to Rio’s cock pressing insistently against her ass. She smiles to herself, then arches her back to rub against him.

Rio groans, the arm around her waist tightening. “Don’t tease.”

“I’m not teasing,” Beth tells him. “I want you to bury your cock inside of me.”

He sets his mouth over the curve of her neck, licking her there before he nips her. “Maybe I don’t want to give you what you want.”

After the night before, she knows that he’s capable of that. Beth throws her arm back, half turning so that she can catch a glimpse of his face. “Please, Rio.”

His eyes are hot as he leans over to take her mouth. Whether it’s intended as a distraction, it certainly works as one. Beth feels his fingers on the insides of her thigh, prying them apart to slip his leg between hers. He rubs his fingers over her entrance, but takes them away after a couple of passes. He replaces them with the head of his cock, the briefest warning before pushing into her.

Beth moans, curling her hand against his scalp.

“Like that?” Rio asks.

“Yes,” Beth sighs. His hand comes up to cover her breast, pinching her nipple lightly.

But his hips move slowly, dragging it out. It almost feels like they’re - Beth flushes at the thought of the phrase - making love. Rio is the only being in the world who ever seems to understand what she needs, how she needs it. Beth likes to think that maybe she gives him a measure of that in return. A little peace, maybe.

“You’ll come back to me?” Beth asks, turning her head to look at him.

Rio slides all the way in and, hips pressed tightly to hers, shifts so that he’s propped up on an elbow and can see her easier.

“Or wait,” he says, “for you to come back to me.”

Beth blinks, her eyes glassy. She’d met a man once who said something similar, but he hadn’t meant it. He had expected her to change, to stay with him even when the world called to her. So Beth had left and never looked back.

“Or,” he goes on, “go with you.”

She likes the sound of that and pulls him in for a kiss even as she starts to rub herself. Unlike the night before, Rio doesn’t seem interested in dragging this out. If anything, it’s the opposite.

One of his hands comes up to cup her breast and Beth hisses when his fingers touch a bruise that he’d bitten into her the night before. He chuckles. “Tender?”

Beth nods, moving her fingers quicker.

She comes at the same time that he sets his mouth against her shoulder and nips her again. He groans, but doesn’t let go of the skin between his teeth and doesn’t stop moving until he, too, comes. She feels him filling her and the sensation makes her shiver. In another lifetime, perhaps, they would be simple people. Maybe a merchant and his wife. They would have children. Half a dozen at least, with Rio’s appetites.

She smiles at the thought.

“What?” Rio asks, curling his fingers under her chin and tilting her head towards him.

“Just had a thought of who we might have been if we weren’t us,” she says. He seems to understand and nods.

“You would be a fancy lady,” Rio states, “and I your bodyguard.”

“No,” Beth laughs, pushing him onto his back, “you would be a merchant and I would be your wife.”

“That sounds very non-luxurious,” he says. “Are you sure that you could handle such a life?”

Beth bites his nipple in retaliation for the comment and for the bite marks he’s left all over her. “You would, of course, be a jewel merchant or something of the like.”

“Ah,” Rio says, grave, “luxury goods.”

“What did you think I’d have you selling, wool?”

“Wool merchants have a much steadier income than those who trade in pretty rocks,” Rio says, but Beth just makes a face. “But I suppose if it’s your fantasy, then who am I to criticize?”

“Exactly,” Beth replies.

They lie there, next to one another for a moment before Rio rolls away and stands.

Beth looks at Rio as he puts his clothing back on.

“You have to go,” she says, pulling up the sheet to cover herself. The bed feels cold without him in it.

He turns, shirt unbuttoned and crouches by the bedside. “Miss me already?” he asks, turning her face towards his and kissing her. “And yes, I do. I’m hungry and I would imagine that you are too. I’ll be back with breakfast.”

He’s just opening the door when Beth calls after him, “Do up your tunic!”

Looking back at her, he grins. “Why, jealous?”

Beth nods.

Rio lets go of the door handle and faces her, doing each button back up until even the top ones are done. “May I go now, sorceress?”

Beth leans back on the pile of pillows. “I suppose. Bring me an -“

“Apple tart,” Rio finishes. “I know. Don’t you dare put a single stitch on, I want to come back and find you just as bare as you are now.”

She watches him leave with a grin. She can do that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to neveroffanon and medievalraven for beta-ing! Title is from Toss a Coin to Your Witcher from the show. Congrats, now it's stuck in your head too. I've never read the books and did absolutely no research, so apologies to anyone super into the lore. If there are things that you think should be warned for, please let me know!
> 
> Just so you know, Annie is Jaskier. It takes years of her following Rio around and singing for him to figure out that she's Beth's sister and that's why they're so rude to each other. (Ruby is also a sorceress.)


End file.
